Spartacus

Lucy Lawless has been arrested, tried, sentenced — and still claims victory. You could hardly expect the chakram-wielding veteran of “Xena the Warrior Princess” and star of “buckets-of-blood” “Spartacus” to be squeamish about being sentenced over a protest. Lawless has consistently said she wasn’t sorry for the incident that led to her run-in with the law. As the Los Angeles Times’ Christie D’Zurilla reported in June, Lawless was arrested in connection with a February 2012 Greenpeace protest. She pleaded guilty at that time to charges of unlawfully being on a ship. The actress and six other activists boarded the Arctic oil-drilling ship the Noble Discoverer, docked at New Zealand’s Port Taranaki. They climbed atop a 174-foot drilling tower and stayed there — for four days — according to an Associated Press report. While there, they camped, blogged and generally hung […]

It was a festive occasion for a melancholy moment. The cast and crew of Starz’s series “Spartacus” gathered in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday night for a lavish red carpet kickoff to the show’s closing chapter. Titled “Spartacus: War of the Damned,” the epic final season focuses on the brutal, bloody war between the rebels led by Liam McIntyre’s Spartacus and the Roman army, a story line that will involve two prominent new villains: Marcus Crassus (Simon Merrells) and a young Julius Caesar (Todd Lasance). “We realized that — historically — it’s a tricky thing to tell,” said creator and executive producer Steven S. DeKnight. “Historically, it’s all over the place. There is no linear story once they start the war. The rebels break apart, come back together, break apart. They go south, south, east, west. We really wanted to tell […]

“I am Spartacus!” Liam McIntyre delivers the line ferociously in the Season 2 trailer that played during the “Spartacus: Vengeance” panel Friday night at Comic-Con International. And there was no refuting his declaration. His new disciples in the room cheered him on. McIntyre takes over the role originally played by Andy Whitfield, who left the Starz period drama due to his ongoing battle with cancer. “It’s an absolute mind-bending journey so far,” McIntyre said. “It’s a great privilege. A Great honor … a great responsibility.” And the cast has been supportive of his arrival—hazing the newbie would have been kind of difficult: “There’s not a lot of pants [on the show] to pull down.” Still, he couldn’t help note the bittersweet aspect of taking on the role that fans identify with someone else. “It’s hard. You kind of wish you […]